Infosys Technologies Limited today announced the results of its third annual Enterprise Architecture (EA) Survey, which polled more than 200 client organizations on their EA capabilities and needs. The survey found that companies are increasingly using enterprise architecture to enable business transformation efforts, shifting towards leveraging processes and metrics to measure EA value and considering global sourcing solutions when it comes to managing their EA efforts.

For the past three years, Infosys has conducted the annual EA survey among CIOs, chief architects, and business and Information Technology (IT) managers with the goal of understanding how EA is managed within organizations and how the capability can better contribute to building a leaner, more agile and competitive business. The report also delves into the benefits, pain points, and overall integration process across organizational activities, such as strategic business planning, and enterprise and IT governance.

This year’s survey results validated Infosys’ approach to servicing its clients, providing statistics on how EA is enabling business transformation, with 42 percent of the clients polled noting that enterprise architects have an active role in strategic planning -- a 6 percent increase from last year. Additionally, there was a significant increase in respondents leveraging the metrics and processes collected and analyzed by Infosys, from only 29 percent of last year’s respondent base to this year’s 44 percent. The increase solidifies the shift from activity-oriented to value-oriented metrics, driving the ability to help measure benefits generated for business and IT.

“Conducting the annual EA survey provides Infosys with the data necessary to better service its client base by directly addressing the IT needs that are top of mind,” said Sohel Aziz, Head, Enterprise Architecture Practice, Infosys Technologies Limited. “This year’s survey results clearly demonstrate that not only is EA playing an increasingly important role within strategic planning, but also that Infosys’ offerings for EA processes and metric analysis are going in the right direction.”

The survey also provided critical insight into emerging opportunities for outsourcing EA activities. While only a minority of respondents saw a strong potential to procure core EA activities like EA planning, a sizeable number see value in leveraging partners in activities like project architecture reviews and exception management. The interest in external sourcing of EA-related activities increases significantly with the size of the organization. Infosys considers this an emerging trend, particularly in more mature EA organizations which focus on business-IT alignment and strategic IT planning whilst engaging with their trusted vendor partners to take on more operational activities.